At Thrive, we believe each child is designed with a unique story, one that is full of flourishing and thriving. But, often our children cannot fully see how beautiful their stories are and they can’t focus beyond the negativity of their weaknesses. As parents and educators, we have been “commissioned” to empower them to see how beautiful their story is and help give them tools to function well within the story each one of our children have been given.
When I was in middle school and high school, I had huge challenges in reading and writing. I was so stuck on the embarrassment of what I thought were weaknesses that it never allowed me to learn to grow. My only strategy was to hide and avoid. It wasn’t until after high school that someone taught me how to embrace my story, and, because of him, I actually became a great reader. I still have my learning difficulties, but I have grown to be confident and flourish within the story I have been given.
The foundation of all learning starts with confidence in your story. Confidence allows us to try new things. It allows us to fail and get back up and try again. It allows our children to celebrate their stories, including their shadows. Building confidence in one’s life is not a quick fix, it’s a long term vision. As we work with students, all of our tutoring, from subject-based tutoring to life coaching, is aimed at bringing awareness and acceptance of our students’ stories. We help students discover the past problems and empower them to see how it can be different in the future. This awareness leads to confidence. As confidence and trust start to grow, we create self-direction and systems for them to flourish in their own stories. It’s never about telling them to “try harder”. We are empowering students to be self-aware, self-confident, and have self-direction as they pursue their hopes for where they are heading.
This process helps to give vision for how we are shaping our children rather than just reacting moment by moment and letting grades be our only gauge of success. Our children’s view of their past story and hope for their future dictates how they live in the present. My goal as a parent and an educator is to create life-long learners who are confident and understand how to learn within their own story.